578 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



tains. Everywhere there is complaint of dull times; employment is slack 

 and business is poor. A man does not better his condition who leaves the 

 mountains for the valleys or lower cities. That is the testimony of hun- 

 dreds who have tried the experiment. I say to you mountain men, turn 

 your hand to whatever offers here at home, rather than take forlorn chances 

 abroad. 



The peculiar climate of this State and the nature of its agriculture are 

 unfavorable to steady employment of labor. The wheat raiser wants a large 

 force during a part of the year, and none the remainder. It is so with the 

 fruit raiser, with the strawberry, and hop culturist. Stock lives all Winter 

 in the open air, and needs little attention. No great barns are required to 

 store agricultural products. These lie safely in the field until shipped away. 

 The tendency of all this is to make a tramp of the laborer. I confess I see 

 no remedy for this. It seems to grow out of our local conditions, which are 

 advantageous in many points of view, but certainly not in this. Hence the 

 dwellers in the mountains are not gainers by seeking employment in the 

 valleys. 



Standing one Summer evening at Interlarken in Switzerland, and look- 

 ing towards the majestic Jungfrau mountain, decked with a mantle of 

 snowy white, which showed grandly revealed in a wide open gorge that 

 unfolds itself in the foreground, I glanced up the steep hillsides on either 

 hand. Far up the dizzy height were scattered human habitations. Cattle 

 were feeding here and there, looking like flies on the acclivities. When a 

 half level spot of a few yards could be found, to hold a little soil, there were 

 signs of patient cultivation. 



Passing down the Rhine in one of the swift steamers that ply from Manitz 

 to Cologne, by old castles, some restored and others in picturesque ruin, the 

 scenes alike of mediaeval revelry and cruelty, the traveler may see the 

 sunny side of the hills, stone-terraced to save every inch of available space. 

 Up the hillsides men and women have carried soil and fertilizers in bas- 

 kets on their backs, and planted the vines, which there ripen their purple 

 fruit on the warm exposure. Every inch of space is precious, and is util- 

 ized, the inclosures appearing from the steamer's deck to be very small and 

 irregular, adapting themselves to the various outlines of the mountain's 

 sides. Sunshine is a coveted agent for turning the thin blood of Rhenish 

 grapes into saccharine matter. Wine grapes would not ripen on the off 

 sides of the mountains, or in the valleys, which are employed in other agri- 

 cultural uses. In this, seventeenth district, there are vast acres entirely 

 unoccupied, as well adapted to wine culture as the best in the Rhenish 

 region. Among the artificial wants of the world, wine stands foremost, 

 The consumption of wine in Europe is almost incredible, while the destruc- 

 tion of European vineyards by disease is widespread, in spite of concerted 

 governmental action to prevent it. California will yet be the greatest wine 

 producing country in the world, and the best part of California for wine 

 and raisin grapes is among these very foothills. I leave to others the task 

 of ascertaining if a pure article of wine is injurious as a beverage. I only 

 speak of this thing as I find it, and as it is likely to be in the future. Cal- 

 ifornia wines are gaining reputation for excellence in the East, and to some 

 degree in Europe, and deserve still more. One obstacle is the manufacture 

 in New York cellars of spurious imitations, poisonous decoctions, which are 

 put on the market as, and undersell the genuine. Such a nefarious trade 

 should be forbidden by heavy penalties. 



As bearing upon the capacities of these foothills for development of varied 

 industries, I may remark that I was able, some two years ago, to visit the 



